William Hague's life of the younger Pitt has been deluged with praise, deserved I'm sure, but I must say I found page 578 a let-down. Hague is describing the great man's death in the early hours of January 23 1806. For a while he seemed to be delirious, but gradually he settled, and at about half past two, he said, in a tone which a man called James Stanhope said he would never forget: "Oh my country! How I leave my country." At half past four, says this version, he gently expired, "like a candle burning out". It's disappointing to find Hague stating this with such certainty, since I always thought Pitt's last words were a matter of dispute. "Oh my country! How I leave my country" is one popular version; "how I love my country", another. But there were also those who maintained that the final words he managed before he died were: "I think I could eat one of Bellamy's meat pies."

Does it matter? I think it does, in that we need at all times to be wide awake to the possible presence of spin; and although some people talk as if spin had been invented by Peter Mandelson, it's really as old as politics, and often to be suspected in the matter of people's last words. There are times when these have indisputably been fashioned by their authors for posterity, though usually in such mind-concentrating circumstances as a head on a block and an axe poised over it. There is no persuasive reason to doubt that King Charles I on the scaffold said: "From a corruptible to an incorruptible crown, where no disturbance can be, no disturbance in the world," or that Latimer at the stake should have said to Ridley: "We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust never shall be put out." There's a good chance too that the final words of the Duke of Monmouth, addressed to an executioner who had botched his previous outing, may have been, as they are always quoted: "There are six guineas for you, and do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell"; though seeing that it took five blows to finish him off, it's possible that he may have muttered after the first blow fell: "Omigod, not again, you blundering nincompoop."

But some of the other famous last words that are usually chronicled seem too good to be true. Can we really be sure that, as some collections report, Tasso, Charlemagne, Lady Jane Grey, Christopher Columbus and unspecified others all signed off with the sentiment: "Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit"? Or that Beethoven's very last words, not just words at the very end of his life but his ultimate ones, were "I shall hear in heaven"? "Die, my dear doctor?" Lord Palmerston is supposed to have asked as he breathed his last. "That's the last thing I shall do." What a brilliant payoff line! But was it his, or was it the work of some ghost writer?

There's a much greater sense of credibility in the less remarkable sayings in these collections. The last words of Lord Macaulay are said to have been: "I shall retire early; I am very tired." He was found dead next morning. Such a terse announcement from such a loquacious man should surely have alerted his household to the fact that something was wrong. Dr Johnson is said to have addressed these last words to a servant, Miss Morris: "God bless you, my dear." That is plausible. And I'd like to believe, though I'm not sure I do, that the dying words of Harriet Martineau were: "I see no reason why the existence of Harriet Martineau should be perpetuated." But sometimes the homely line is as dubious as the stately one.

The Times reported that the dying words of King George V were: "How is the Empire?" That sounds like the work of spin doctors to me. The more popular version says that having been told by some minion he was fit enough to travel to Bognor, he replied: "Bugger Bognor." That too, in its different way, strikes me as too good to be true.

And those are my final words on the subject - or indeed, on any subject, since this is the last of these columns. My thanks to those who have written in during the life of Elsewhere suggesting people, places and themes that I might pursue. I am tempted to say as I go, "My column! How I leave my column!" But I think instead I shall settle for one of Waitrose's meat pies.